He was "contrairy" in everything. So orthodox a Catholic that
he had to have written permission from
Rome to read books which were on the Index, he
yet spent years of his life putting over on an Irish public which remained
good-naturedly indifferent, the dramatic works of
Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian Lutheran who used the
technique of the Parisian well-made play to state the dubiously interesting
problems of one group after another of unbelievably solemn small-town
egotists.

A convert to Home Rule and Sinn
Féin, he insisted on remaining a member and habitué of the Kildare Street
Club, and for all his nationalism, he had so little sense of history
that he could only see the Civil War as a manifestation of a native instinct
for producing subversive minorities which he, who was not of them, thought he
perceived in the Irish people.

The most lovable of men, he tended, sooner or later, to part
company with those who were originally associated with him in the various
enterprises, political and cultural, in which from patriotic motives he
interested himself — and like an old-time patron usually helped to
finance.

The explanation of this last characteristic would seem to be
that he was more interested in his own preconceived idea of the Irish nation
than in the nation itself. It was therefore inevitable that he should sometimes
find himself at odds with other enthusiasts whose theory or practice did not
fit in with his. In other words, he was a nineteenth century idealist. He was
of his time, not in front of it, a man of ideas rather than understanding, of
talent rather the genius. But unquestionably of sufficient talent to make a
mark on the history of his country. Most of the men who figure in public life
make no mark at all on history. A
Pádraig Pearse or a
James Connolly, drawing inspiration from a whole
nation, consciously incarnating its perhaps only half-conscious sense of
direction at a moment of crisis, marks a turning-point in a country's
destinies. A greater number affirm their influence sufficiently strongly for it
to remain memorable though not epoch-making. These are the men of talent.
Edward Martyn was one of them. And if at a given
moment he failed to reconcile the lesser misunderstandings that existed between
the mass of his countrymen and himself, they, at least, never failed to
recognise that on the larger issues he was according to his lights, a man of
outstanding rectitude and goodwill.

And what were his lights? Secularly they were those of the
small group of more liberal landlords who accepted the sociological ideas of
the nineteenth century. But unlike the majority of these,
Edward Martyn was brought up in the religion of
the mass of the people, the Catholic religion. And he took his Catholicism
seriously. Indeed he was more than a little of a saint. But if it be correct to
say that a man's life in relation to the community is fulfilled only in so far
as he helps to realise the needs of the community — and history suggests
that it is correct — then it would seem that in secular matters, where
the point of departure was that of a man not of the people,
Edward Martyn's influence must almost inevitably
tend to be ephemeral, whereas the enterprises he undertook in connection with
religion, where he was at one with the people. might be of more lasting value.
And so it has turned out.

To-day we associate
Edward Martyn's name, not to much with the
beginnings of the Abbey Theatre, or with Sinn
Féin or the Gaelic League or the Feis
Ceóil or the Irish Literary
Theatre — all of which he encouraged and materially helped
— as with, first and foremost, the Palestrina Choir at
the Pro-Cathedral and then with the modern Irish stained glass revival. An
ever-increasing number of people are aware that it was he who initiated the
movement for the establishment of the Irish stained glass industry which was to
take definite shape as An Tur Gloine, The Tower of Glass.
Out of that was to come the whole series of greater and lesser masterpieces by
Michael Healy, over fifty of which remain in
Ireland. And from that fine start came the
broader development that was to include the stained glass work of
Wilhelmina Geddes,
Harry Clarke,
Hubert MacGoldrick,
Evie Hone,
Richard King and others who, it is not an
exaggeration to claim, have placed
Ireland amongst the very first countries of
the contemporary world in the production of stained glass art. Without
attempting to minimise the extremely valuable part, artistic and financial,
played by
Miss Sarah Purser in the early days of that
venture, it is still true to say that had it not been for
Edward Martyn who initiated the idea it would
never have been undertaken at all.

Even more important to
Edward Martyn, however, was the
Palestrina Choir at the Pro-Cathedral. Liturgical music was,
he said, himself, the chief interest of his life. And it is thanks to him and
to that great Irishman,
Archbishop Walsh of
Dublin, who with infinite understanding and
patience saw
Martyn's scheme through from
conception to realisation, that, for forty years now, the Palestrina
Choir has provided such opportunity as was never before available to
the Irish laity of hearing all the music of the Liturgy worthily sung by a
trained body of singers. Sunday after Sunday and feast after feast; above all,
perhaps, Easter after Easter, the wonderful music of the Liturgy is rendered by
the Choir (of "at least eight men and
twenty boys" as the foundation agreement laid down — though usually a
good many more), under the still admirable direction of
Dr. Vincent O'Brien, whom
Martyn and
Dr. Walsh first appointed. There we hear the
sublimest compositions in all music, the anonymous ancient chants that were
already old and consecrate in the days of
Gregory the Great, nearly
fourteen centuries ago, and the later settings of the inspired words by known
masters like
Pierre de la Rue,
Pier Luigi
Palestrina,
Orlando di Lasso and
Vittoria.

From the establishment of the Choir on,
Martyn was the most faithful
attendant at High Mass in the Pro-Cathedral. Half-crippled with arthritis, one
would see him making his way slowly up the aisle. And how pleased he was if,
afterwards, one ventured to make an appreciative remark about the music or the
rendering of it. He really loved his choir, as many less musically learned
Irishmen than he have come to love it since. Even in matters of the rendering
of church music, however, he had very decided views. I do not know whether he
ever argued with
Dr. O'Brien on the
subject, but I do remember how, in his helpless and lovable way, he fulminated
to me against the Vatican Choir for what he considered its
excessively "operatic" methods, as we happened on each other coming out from
the first of the concerts of sacred music it gave in
Dublin about twenty years ago. I did not know
whether he was right or wrong, but I dared to say that a setting of some stark
passage from the Liturgy — I think it was the Dies Irae — by
Vittoria was the most
awe-inspiring piece of music I had ever heard. But no! As rendered by the
Vatican Choir
Edward Martyn would have none of it. And he
pottered off grumbling.

He was the same in everything. He knew how things ought to be
done, and if they were not done his way they were wrong. But he was as modest
in his behaviour as he was tenacious of his principles. And he seldom
quarrelled. He declared his views and if he failed to win agreement for them he
busied himself with something else. For everything he ever took up he made
sacrifices. He always gave money. But he gave more than money. He gave time,
thought, energy, advice. He wrote articles, he attended committee meetings. For
the Irish Literary Theatre he wrote
plays. He was ready to talk till all hours of the night with anyone who came to
see him in his little flat beside the Club. Young people interested in any
political or cultural scheme susceptible of national application were always
encouraged. I remember the plain room with its bare furniture and the solitary
thing in the way of a picture, an unframed colour-print of the Madonna of the Eucharist by
Ingres, propped up on the chimney-piece. There the
great men of the great generation, that of the first quarter of this century,
had all, at one time or another, gone to talk over some aspect of the nation's
life with the generous, saintly, patriotic old crank.

Like most of them, but in his own way, he gave in death as he
had given in life. Though he was only moderately rich, his generosity had been
proverbial. In his will he left money to the Gaelic League
as well as to many charities. The Palestrina Choir had lived
mainly on his original endowment. At his death he made provision for
entertainments to be given to his singers twice a year. There was a small gift
for every tenant who had bought his holding from him under the Land Purchase
Acts. His bequest to the St.
Vincent de Paul Society carried a clause to the effect that the
charitable purposes on which it was spent must be Irish ones. The few fine
pictures he owned — they included a
Degas and a
Monet — went to
Ireland's National
Gallery. The idea of pompes
funèbres did not interest him and he directed that instead of
being buried in the family vault his body was to be taken to the
Cecilia Street Hospital, for dissection by the medical
students, among the other corpses that are provided from the workhouse
infirmaries. So it was done. That was the end of the earthly life of the
"contrairy" Christian and patriot. But his goodness in all things remains an
inspiration. For all his vagaries, of few men is it as plainly evident that he
lived and died, as the simple phrase has it, to God and
Ireland true.